Well, this has been an exciting three weeks. We had to allocate most of our resources to stabilizing our service, but rest assured we did this with great pleasure. While our efforts had clear results, the development plan for the first two weeks was ruined, and the last week was spent finishing the storyline missions that are to be released with the next patch. This would have been deployed today, but we found an unexpected mission-critical bug and will release it sometime in the beginning of next week. Till then, a few teasers:

While these new missions are only available to Agents with high relations (they are level 3 assignments) and form a small proportion of all missions in game, they serve as a great platform to test our new assignment features that will find their way into the entire assignment system.

The influx of players brought light to a lot of glitches, imbalances and dysfunctional mechanisms in the game, so instead of rushing forward and pushing out new features in the next weeks, we are taking a step back and making everything that is available in the game better. All of these features are subject to change, but their purpose and outlines are quite clear. Behold, in the specific order of release:

Week of 25th of July

All our base are belong to us

Beta outposts are greatly underused at the moment. This is due to their poor risk versus reward ratio. Industrial traffic attracts a lot of hostile attention and the attackers have great advantages at the moment:

  • safe equipment storage
  • instant respawn
  • seeing the defenders’ available backup numbers
  • seeing what the defenders deploy to the island through an Arkhe scout
  • docking when overwhelmed
  • generally nothing to lose

To make these outposts and their facilities more appealing, the owners will be able to manage docking access via the relation system. The ownership will be decided in the period of two Intrusions. Losing the first Intrusion, the defenders will lose docking access management rights and the second will decide the new owner of the outpost. Later on the Intrusion timer system will also be revisited.

Welcome your new robot overlords

The Nians are becoming more clever and flexible - if you partially destroy a spawn group, it will keep coming at you. If you totally destroy a spawn group, the Nians will deploy a different kind of spawn the next time to keep you guessing. There’s also the chance that the spawn group may be an "elite" spawn - special forces carrying higher quality gear, or items that will lead to higher ranked Elite Spawns.

Week of 15th of August

Fledgeling industrialist love

There is a distinct lack of beginner production in the game. Industrialists either have to commit very serious effort, resources and EP to production, or risk failing to be competitive in any market. To mend this we are going to introduce a simple system that allows us to determine an item’s manufacturing ‘difficulty’, making it more or less sensitive to extensions and facility levels.

The idea is quite simple. CTs will not start at a default 50% material and time efficiency level, but will be predefined by their end product's complexity. Complex items will have low efficiency, leaving great room for improvement, whereas simple items - such as ammo and standard equipment - will start at high values, making them less sensitive to improving factors.

Furthermore we also plan to replace all epriton based components in T1 modules. This and the above changes will allow for a much easier and competitive entry to the industrialist career.

Industrialist brothers in arms

Currently all involved in high level production have to grind their relations up towards the relevant factions to achieve competitive results on the market. This is quite unfair, as these characters typically have little extension points invested in combat, so their combat extension spending comes at an expensive rate and they are forced into activities they may not prefer.

Henceforth, the combat mission relations will not be effecting production. Industrial mission relations will still be calculated, as the facilities currently used by the Agents are owned and loaned by the Syndicate.

From the cartographer’s wishlist

  • Agents will be able to set waypoints by a point & click method on the map, rename them, and organize them info folders.
  • Outpost ownership will be displayed on the map.
  • The legend area will be resizeable, making the use of the map much more comfortable.

Zombiepilot

Probably one of the most anticipated features since launch is the autopilot. Good news everyone, the time has come. You will be able to add waypoints in a certain order to create routes. When the autopilot is engaged, it will follow the route. Although plants that may grow in the path will block the robots, it’s worth noting that there are already many paths connecting the main landmarks that are cleared of these annoying vegetables. Have fun finding them and plot away!

Why is it called Zombiepilot?* Because it is really dumb and will literally do nothing more than try to lurch its way towards the next waypoint. Braaaiiinns!

* It's not, actually.

Perpetual life

Perpetuum’s persistent universe is in strong contrast with the Agents being able to reinvent themselves and appear with different names and faces. Character resetting will be removed at this point. Obviously doing it right the first time is nearly impossible. Fear not - we have a solution.

For the first 30 days you can both add and subtract extension levels in your Agent Profile. The limitation to this is that you won't be able to jump back and forth between full-fledged combat and industry specialization every minute, and that taking any extension to level 6 will freeze it perpetually. There will be an option for a one time attribute reset in this first period as well, most probably via running a trimmed version of the character creator again.

Week of 22nd of August

Farewell ‘Triangle’

All assignments will be overhauled:

  • The newly introduced features will make all assignments more challenging and exciting.
  • Transport missions will be fixed, their targets will not be another terminal, where another mission can be picked up, but rather a special building on the field. This will correct their reward per time ratio.
  • Mining missions will have a special target material, which is required by the Syndicate for the process of collecting energy and transferring it back to Earth, and is not used in the production chain.
  • Geoscanning assignments will be removed, and added as extra objectives to mining missions. These changes will ensure that these assignments do not interfere with the economy on the surface.

As you can see, we have a lot of changes on the horizon that we’re excited about, and we think you will be too. We look forward to reading your feedback on these suggestions, and working with you to create the best possible play experience. Until next time:

“Scuttle safe!”

Dear Players,

we would like to close another chapter in the history of Perpetuum and set our eyes on pastures greener and newer. Everyone involved in the recent exploits has been severely punished. The complexity and scale of the issue left us with little room for deliberation, so our only option was to wipe all everything from corporation hangars and characters. This way, the illegitimate assets have been completely removed from the game. Sharing numbers with the community would be futile, for if someone has the ability to create items out of thin air, it matters not whether they have a stock of three hundred or three million in their hangars.

Unfortunately the measures we took affected a lot of players that had no idea about the scam they were involved in. Please allow me to say a few words about those we have punished in M2S. This is not a name and shame post, these players had no idea what was going on behind the scenes and suffered betrayal from a small number of people they trusted and were loyal to. The persistence, honesty and camaraderie demonstrated by this corporation during our proceedings against them is nothing short of admirable and deserves the full respect of both the development team and all the other players. They took this devastating blow right on the chin and decided to start from scratch, stay together and reestablish themselves on Nia. We wish them all the best!

The corporations fighting these unbeatable odds also deserve our awe and respect in industrial, military and communal aspects equally.

We would like to kindly request that there be no witch hunt, humiliation, harassment against players that were unaware of the exploit schemes and already took a huge blow both economically and emotionally. The real offenders are no longer among us, so any of these callouts would be misplaced, and we will protect all our players from causeless harassment equally.

We are very proud to be hosts for such a great community, all of you guys are awesome! Here's to an engaging adventure for all of us!

It has come to our attention that some players have gained illegitimate possession of significant amounts of robots, equipment and other commodities, due to an exploitable game mechanic. The method that was used can by no means interpreted as intended gameplay. A lot of technical preparation and effort went into the experimentation and execution.

The magnitude of these exploits have helped these players to affect the whole poiltical landscape of Perpetuum. With the uneven playing field, legitimate corporations had an extremely hard time competing for their goals. Their persistence is admirable and we are committed to achieving and maintaining a game where skill and effort prevail.

Calculate it.

We have thoroughly examined the extent of the exploits and removed all robots, equipment and commodities associated with them to the last. All accounts that were involved in the fabrication of aforementioned resources have been permanently banned from the game. The same is true for those accounts that had characters gaining unfair knowledge base improvements.

We are certain that from now on, Nia will be a much more interesting, exciting and rewarding place to be, and are looking forward to a new age in both the political and economical events of the game. The extent of our investigation and handling of the situation ensures that everyone has the same chance for fame and fortune in our distant world.

The exploitable mechanism has been fixed. We warn all players, that we will deal with similar offenders with utmost severity. If anyone has further information regarding the issue, now is the time to come forward and share it with us privately at support@perpetuum-online.com. We will keep pursuing this case with full effort. For those that feel they have been cheated out of their hard earned wealth, please contact us and we will examine your cases individually. Our goal is to enrich the immersion and experience within the game, not to harm them.